Subtitles in MKV File in VLC

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thewombat
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2016 10:52 pm

Subtitles in MKV File in VLC

Post by thewombat »

I have an MKV file of a Blu-ray movie that I made with MakeMKV. The subtitles are visible when I play the file in VLC, but when I take the same file and transfer it to my USB stick and play it on my Sony BDP-S1200 Blu-ray player, the subtitles don't appear even though I have enabled the subtitle option. Can anyone shed some light into why this is, and what I can do to solve the issue? Thank you.

Jim
Woodstock
Posts: 9912
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:21 pm

Re: Subtitles in MKV File in VLC

Post by Woodstock »

Did you rip it using the default profile, or with the WDTV profile? If you don't know what a profile is, then you used the default (they have to be turned on by enabling "expert mode" in Preferences->General).

The difference is that the default profile does not compress the PGS subtitles when it put s them into the MKV container, and the WDTV profile does. There are some devices that NEED the subtitles to be compressed in an MKV file, some that won't work if they're compressed, and others that don't care. And there are some devices that won't play PGS subtitles in an MKV file, no matter what.

VLC falls into the "don't care" class. The profile is called WDTV because Western Digital's WDTV product must have them compressed.

If you are familiar with the MKVtoolnix programs, you can compress the PGS subtitle tracks "after the fact".
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thewombat
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2016 10:52 pm

Re: Subtitles in MKV File in VLC

Post by thewombat »

Thank you, Woodstock. I'll try again in expert mode and report back.
thewombat
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2016 10:52 pm

Re: Subtitles in MKV File in VLC

Post by thewombat »

It didn't work. I still can't see the subtitles in the MKV file.
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